Attendance History

Everton have completed in all competitive seasons
in the English Football League and the Premier League, all but four in the top flight; below is their record of average attendances at Goodison
Park (and Anfield Road, in the dim and distant past).

THE EARLY YEARS

Everton's first seasons were at Anfield Road, and attracted the
biggest crowds, even though attendance records initially were of dubious
accuracy. After The Split in 1892, Goodison Park then becoming the pre-eminent football stadium in the land,
with Everton
fans setting the pace as the new Football League got well into its stride...

Crowds were big, despite three seasons in the Second Division. And
the glorious 60s saw the return of Everton as one of the biggest clubs
in the country. But the 70s saw the crowds dropping off and the 80s
were a bad era for English football. Progressive reductions in ground capacity
at Goodison continued until Everton briefly came good under Howard Kendall
but the crowds soon fell away before the Premier League resurgence really got
going...

In 1992, Sky invented football... Initially with the
advent of the Premier League, despite Everton's abysmal
league record (until recently) crowds were far better than the late 1970s and 1980s
with some of the highest averages coming in the Martinez era:

As the club's historical place among the Top Five in England was finally vacated
at the end of the 20th century, Everton's average attendances declined below the oft-quoted 36,000 level. That was
until the dawn of the Moyes Era... and a lad named Wayne Rooney, whom everyone
wanted to see. The average
attendance for season 2003-04 was the highest in 25 years, despite accumulation
of the lowest points total in the club's history!

Attendances fell back
the following season after Rooney left  despite Everton finishing 4th  but the
36,000 number was exceeded during the generally dismal 2005-06 season, despite
the dreadful quality of football on display. That trend stayed pretty firm through most of the subsequent Moyes years, with crowds generally around or a little above the 36,000 level, consistent with something like 4,000 seats at Goodison Park being classed as having obstructed views.

The average crowd dropped significantly, however, in 2011-12 to a level not seen in 17 years... ironically the last season when a trophy was won! Some say it was a delayed reaction to the credit crunch; others, that they had finally had enough of David Moyes's dour defensive anti-football. But optimism was renewed in 2012-13 and, bouyed by a good starts and an excellent home record, crowds topped 36,000 again.

However, it took a new manager and a bright new fresh positive outlook
in the form of the mercurial Roberto Martinez to really bring the sell-out
crowds back to Goodison Park in his first season, 2013-14, with a
remarkable load factor of over 95%, breaking 38,000 in his last two
seasons despite it all going pear-shaped. But that record would be
outdone in Ronald Koeman's first season, when the average crowd topped
39,000 for the fist time since 1974-75, with all season tickets sold out.